This paper presents a novel and exploratory investigation of how users might control future autonomous vehicles with user-defined in-air static hand gestures. In the era of autonomous vehicles, how to support “driving” without steering control may become a key issue affecting user experience. As the navigation interface of future autonomous cars will be wholly dependent on GPS, and passengers will be unable to make manual control adjustments, verbal or gestural communication will become a primary means to assist them in vehicle control. We thus focus on gesture as an innovative solution for this “final 100 meters” problem in automated navigation. A study (N = 24) conducted in a full chassis simulator shows that hand gesture control is feasible for autonomous vehicle navigation. It further reveals that hand gestures are influenced by task types, local regional norms, and participant culture. In particular, the spatial region where gestures occur can affect execution time, gender can impact user preference and demand, and culture differences and priorities can affect adoption, ease of learning, and user comfort, influencing longer-term use.

本文对用户如何使用用户定义的空中静态手势控制未来的自动驾驶汽车进行了新颖的探索性研究。在自动驾驶汽车时代，如何在没有转向控制的情况下支持“驾驶”可能成为影响用户体验的关键问题。由于未来自动驾驶汽车的导航界面将完全依赖GPS，并且乘客将无法进行手动控制调整，因此口头或手势通信将成为协助他们进行车辆控制的主要手段。因此，我们将手势作为自动导航中“最终100米”问题的创新解决方案。在全底盘模拟器中进行的一项研究（N = 24）表明，手势控制对于自动驾驶汽车是可行的。它进一步揭示了手势受任务类型的影响，当地的区域规范和参与者文化。特别是，发生手势的空间区域可能会影响执行时间，性别会影响用户的偏好和需求，文化差异和优先级会影响采用，学习的便利性和用户的舒适度，从而影响长期使用。